Hey - we live in the country and them dang mices find it preferable to live in our house with water, food bits and warmth provided - than to fend for they own selves in the out of doors. The other morning I was sipping my morning java and watched a 10 pound mouse haul his fat butt across the counter in broad daylight.

"Arrgggh -I had all I can stands and I caint stands no more", said I.

I should mention that our cat Bill - (see above) - officially gave up mousing about 4 years ago. Ahh, how fondly I remember the day I brought him home and he nailed a mouse under the sink within about 15 minutes. That was before he discovered cable TV, toilet flushing, and getting his lounge on. He did make a brief come back about 6 months ago and laid one out for us in the living room - strutting all around puffed with pride. I gave him seven bucks and his own Personal Pan Pizza - I figured he was back in the groove. HA! Like a flash he resumed his life of snooooozing whilst the rodents prospered.

I dug out my trusty stash of d-Con Snap Traps. These are my preferred traps. They are the modern day version of the tried and tru mouse trap used by the Founders of Our Country n the Daughters of the American Revolution. Oh, there are BETTER mousetraps out there....supposedly. How about the sticky glue ones? Geez, how freakin' cruel is that - the little buggers get stuck and slowly starve to death. My understanding of the boxes of poison is that the dose expands in the mouse and strangles it. Yeah, I want the mice out of our house and the only way I have found is to kill them, but we don't have to torture them, do we?

Thinking they were a BETTER idea, I tried these Tom Cat re-usable traps. They are easier to set (pretty hard to snap your own finger in them because you pinch them open from the back to set them. You can dispose of the mouse in a nice, clean fashion with these - hold it over the trash can and open the jaws. Hey Presto - use it again.

All that sounds dandy - don't it? Well the BIG drawback to these in my opinion is that they are wimpy. I was in the kitchen one day and heard a commotion under the sink where I had set a Tom Cat. Well, it caught the little bastige, but it does not SNAP shut like the d-Con unit. The poor little beast was struggling and thrashing all over the place. I released his mouse-ass outside and apologized to him.

Since that time I use the Auld Skool type trap. When the d-Con Snap Trap snaps on a mouse - that mouse be dead purty dang quick, yessir. As far as the re-usable part - well, I can get two of the Snap Traps for less than 2 bucks American - so I toss the whole mess in the trash - mouse n trap can soar off to Valhalla together.

The Snap Traps are supposedly cheese scented (I sniffed one yesterday and didn't smell cheesy to me) so you don't even need to bait them. Me - I put a dab of peanut butter in the leeetle yellow cup. Mices love peanut butter. Me? I love Snap Traps.

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